


Marble in a Box

by sbuggbot



Series: Umeko's Story [4]
Category: SteamWorld Quest (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heart-to-Heart, Reference to a Posthumous OC, Reflection, Slice of Life, just sitting and talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: Orik reflects on his past early one morning with Armilly.
Series: Umeko's Story [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941955
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Marble in a Box

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started this back in April, when this snippet would take place, but I had trouble getting it to write. I'm annoyingly good at coming up with excellent but disconnected spurts of narration then struggling to fit them into context. I dusted it off last night and it went places today, thankfully. (Although Armilly and Orik did start talking about some more general headcanons I've had for a while.)
> 
> Also I might polish this off when I can focus better but enjoy for now

It wasn't unusual for Orik to be up in time to see the sun rise, even when he wasn't suffering insomnia. He normally woke up fairly early, save for the mornings his aged joints hurt too much to get out of bed right away. It wasn't one of those mornings, though; he was standing in the living room right now and trying to figure out where his train of thought had taken off to without him.

_What day is it again? April 6th? That sounds right...  
_

_...oh. It's April 6th.  
_

Then the feelings hit him.

Normally it was more of a dull ache in his chest, like an old wound that didn't quite heal right. This time, though, it crashed over him in a massive wave that knocked him onto his knees. Hiding part of his face behind his hand, Orik looked out the window and attempted to compose himself. He didn't get very far; it was one of those days where the grief felt fresh.

He vaguely recalled an analogy for grief he'd been told once. A box with a button on one of the inside walls and a ball rolling loosely. Whenever the ball bumped the button, he'd feel despondent. When he first lost Umeko, the ball took up so much space in the box that you couldn't do anything with it without it bumping into the button. Over time, though, the ball did get smaller and smaller as it rolled around in the box. It hit the button less and less often. Even now, with the ball rather small, it still bumped into the button every now and then. When it did, it still hurt as much as it did the first time, even if it had been a while since the last time.

As was tradition, the marble had rolled straight into the button today. He blinked away several tears.

A reminder to go easy on himself today. He never made plans on or even around this day anyway. He'd probably visit her grave later...

Footsteps. Sounds like he isn't the only one up now. It was a heavier sort of clanking, from extra armor and plating that wasn't quite tailored to its owner but adjusted so it would properly serve its function. It stopped abruptly when the source reached the edge of the room.

Still looking out the window, Orik said, "This is the day I lost her," in anticipation of any incoming questions. 

"Oh…"

It was strange, really. Once Orik overcame that initial struggle to open up about Umeko and what had happened, it was so much easier to mention to the point he sometimes did so in passing. 

Armilly walked over. "You want a distraction?"

Orik immediately and sharply shook his head. "This is a day of remembrance for me. But company would still help, I suppose."

She sat down next to him but didn't say anything. Armilly was more socially shrewd than many realized, so she knew sometimes the best thing to do was just to listen.

"She's been closer to the forefront of my mind as of late….." Probably since it'd been pulled up there when Copernica inexplicably got an identical rash to the one Umeko had. The alchemist recovered without incident but Orik's past experiences were enough to send him into a week-long anxiety attack as a result. "Call me stubborn, but I still miss her and nobody can replace that spot in my heart."

"You did call her your soulmate that one time…"

"Yes, and I know that's a bond you create, not find, but I never did want to go through that process again after she died."

"She was in the Temperance, wasn't she?" Armilly already knew the answer to that, but aside from that she didn't know very much about any of the members aside from Gilgamech, Orik, and some about the Grand Knight. 

"Yes, although I don't remember which of us joined first." He was looking out the window wistfully. "She did well in close-quarters combat like you and I do with our blades, but where she really shined was with archery. Most of what I learned in that department beyond the basics was from her."

"You can shoot a bow?"

"Well, I used to, haven't been able to for quite a while now." He turned from the window for a moment to gesture at his arm with a wry half-smirk. "But nowhere _near_ her skill level. Even with our different skillsets we worked together flawlessly in fights."

Armilly made a nonverbal sound to indicate she was still listening; she just didn't have anything to say in response right away.

They remained in an easy silence for a while before a thought occurred to Armilly, suddenly enough she sat up straight in her confusion. "Hey Orik?"

"Mm?"

"How come only you and Gilgamech went to fight the Behemoth?" That question had been prodding at the back of her mind ever since she had learned the full story of what had happened (and the fates of the two heroes involved). "Why didn't they send anyone else with to help?"

He looked down, focusing more on his hand resting on the windowsill than the view off in the distance. "To send anyone else on the mission would have only resulted in sending them to an early grave," he said. "Few had the strength and fighting abilities the task called for. Even then, you know Gilgamech was badly hurt and I nearly died. Although…"

"Although?"

"The possibility of Umeko going along as well was considered at one point because of how well we worked together...however, with us being married, that required us to consider the possibility one of us went down during the fight. The surviving spouse would have to be sure their determination wouldn't break in response, that they would be in a state of mind to keep fighting." A pause. "...I could not say as much about myself with confidence." He sounded a touch ashamed of himself at that last bit, but he pushed it away quickly.

"She meant a lot to you."

"And I to her. She understood the way I felt and we did what we thought was best." That didn't stop him from going over those what-ifs during sleepless nights in the years that followed, how things might have changed, but whenever he did so he found he never got anywhere and usually only made himself feel worse. "Based on how I reacted to her---um, from losing her to something else, it was probably for the better."

He went quiet after that, lost in thinking about things again. 

Armilly leaned over and gave Orik a big hug. After the initial moment of surprise he settled into the hug and returned it with a soft "thank you". "For this, and the talk…"

He might not be able to stop the marble from hitting the button every once in a while, but good friends made the aching in his heart easier to bear.

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to do more stuff involving Umeko in some way. I have scribbles and bits littered around the fanfic part of my Google Docs, but they're only little bits that aren't complete enough to post. Like glances into the world inside my head.


End file.
